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Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie’s “Reservation Blues” is a passionately written dramatization of life on an American Indian Reservation. Alexie was born and raised on the Spokane-Indian Reservation, and his life experience allows him to write with great distinction on the vice and depravity of reservation life. Thomas-Builds-The-Fire, a distant Spokane Indian, is indoctrinated to start a blues band, featuring himself and two of his misadventurous rez-mates. As they grow in popularity, the band mates are often tested by the unnamed forces of the asomatous, spiritual reservation on which they live. The Spokane Reservation is the epicenter of the book’s events, as well as the non corporeal force which guides and manipulates its characters. The reservation in the minds of the band members is held in great contempt, as well as high esteem. Alexi’s “Reservation Blues” brings to light the potential of a Native American culture unopposed by white influence. The reader is given a tour of many aspects of reservation life, which appear to the reader at first not as presences, but as absences of culture. By giving examples such as catholic incursion into Indian culture, Alexie shows that much of Indian culture was cut away by the “white man”. Without self-destructive instruments that Alexie implies are inherently “white”, such as alcohol, government spooks, or commodity foods, Indian Reservations might keep their ancestral culture alive. Reservation Blues, while casting a clear picture of the trials of rez life, remains objective and does not lash out directly at white folk. Alexie’s ability to remain objective showcases his novel’s strength.
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